Hoodoo is Resilience—Faith with works. Born under centuries of distortion and oppression, Indigenous North Americans and brilliant POWs from Africa were forced into assimilation. They joined in union, not only to survive, but because they recognized the humanity in each other.

Some accepted the doctrines of Western Christianity—often reshaped to control and erase us—while others preserved Us within the songs, hand-claps, Sunday dinners, and the deep, rhythmic shouts of the spirit. From this fusion, great denominations arose: Southern Baptist, True Holiness, and many more. These churches became vessels of self-preservation, carrying power forward for generations to come.

Hoodoo hid in the everyday—folded into sayings like “Don’t put your purse on the floor” or “Don’t sweep my feet.” It is a closed practice, inherited by the descendants of enslaved Africans in America. The price of entry has been paid in our stomps and hand claps, in our plight, in unspoken words turned into moans and hums. Paid in blood. Paid in forced sacrifice—reclaimed as love.

Why Hoodoo Has Been Feared, Misinterpreted, and Erased?

From the moment Africans set foot on this soil in chains, Hoodoo was recognized as a threat—because it was power outside the reach of the enslaver. Its roots in herbal medicine, protection rites, and coded communication helped guide escapes and uprisings. Harriet Tubman herself used dream visions and plant knowledge to move people through the night. Slave Codes of the 1700s, and laws like South Carolina’s “Conjure Act” of 1739 after the Stono Rebellion, specifically targeted these practices out of fear.

After slavery, the attack shifted. White evangelical denominations sought to “standardize” Black worship into Euro-American forms. Some early Black preachers—under pressure or for survival—publicly condemned Hoodoo as superstition or witchcraft to gain church funding, security, or social acceptance. Figures like Rev. G. W. Offley, Bishop Daniel Payne, and Rev. Alexander Crummell preached against African spiritual traditions, aligning with white missionary goals. This appeased white evangelicals, but silenced and shamed the very practices that had kept our people alive.

By the 19th and 20th centuries, newspapers and Hollywood worked hand-in-hand to paint all African diaspora traditions as dangerous “black magic.” Sensational headlines, horror films like White Zombie (1932), and TV shows with “voodoo dolls” turned sacred tradition into a monster story, erasing its role in healing, justice, and protection.

For many today, the first reaction is, “Why haven’t I ever heard of this?” The answer: because elders practiced in whispers, passing knowledge only to those they trusted. Segregated schools never taught it. Fear of ridicule, job loss, or police harassment kept it underground. And much of it has always been oral tradition—not written—so that outsiders could never fully take it.

Hoodoo is not for public consumption. It is a closed practice, guarded to protect the lineage from exploitation and to preserve the truth. Outsiders cannot buy their way in. The right to this knowledge has been earned—and paid for—in centuries of blood, work songs, coded prayers, and an unbroken chain of love that even slavery could not sever.